Who’d have thought that snow falls Video-Choir-Installation · ca. 70 min · Ukrainian · Premiere 2021, revised 2024 The story In 2021, a German-Polish-Ukrainian team traveled to the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine to meet local singing collectives. The question behind the journey: how do crisis and everyday life shape a voice — and how is that carried on, across generations, across borders? It was the eighth year of war in the region. A year later, Russia’s full invasion began. The villages we had visited are now under occupation. Singing the Ukrainian songs that had been sung there for generations is forbidden. Who’d have thought that snow falls grew out of this rupture. The voices we recorded became something we hadn’t planned: a living archive of a tradition silenced at its place of origin. The Installation Three large screens hang in the room like windows — opened toward Luhansk and toward a past that can no longer be reached. On them: the singers of Bilolutsk, Osynove, and Horodyshche, filmed in 2021 in their villages and landscapes. In front of the screens, a choir of Berlin-based and displaced Ukrainian singers answers them live. Their voices cross the physical distance the war has drawn. Between the songs, a poem is read — written from inside the occupied zone. Its words bring the reality of life under occupation directly into the room. Martyna Poznańska’s multi-channel composition of field recordings from Luhansk and Matthias Schönijahn’s video work hold the space together. What emerges is a site of collective listening, where loss and resilience are not pushed aside but made audible — and, for a moment, carried together. On the title The title refers to Frank O’Hara’s poem Wind, in which a snowstorm, seen through a window, strikes the lyrical self with sudden, fragile force. In the installation, the screens become such windows. What appears in the poem as a snowstorm resounds here as war: the unimaginable breaking in, fragile beauty turning into rupture. Press „The voices of the women in the landscapes of Luhansk resonate within the space and continue in the singing of the Berlin project choir, making them physically tangible. Coming together with these people in the here and now — giving space to loss, displacement, and pain — has created a sense of solidarity and connectedness.“ — Matthias Rebstock, Doing Collective Memories Interview RBB Radio 3 Review Berlin Mitte Magazin Team Artistic direction, camera, video editing, stage design and direction Matthias Schönijahn // choir direction, composition choir Paulina Miu Kühling // composition, sound design Martyna Poznańska // dramaturgy, choreographic collaboration Rose Beermann, Constantin von Thun// field and choirrecordings – Johannes van Bebber // dramaturgy video Ljupcho Temelkovski // light design Maika Knoblich, Constantin von Thun // outfits Ewa Brokos // video projection, sound, technical set-up Johannes Plank, Anna Petzer // scientific consulting Влада Русіна (Vlada Rusina) // production management Birgit Voigt // production management Ukraine Валера Пріорізна (Valera Prioriznha) // artistic assistance, translation Тереза Яковина (Tereza Yakovyna) Berlin-based and displaced Ukrainian singers Agnieszka Bułacik, Ewa Brokos, Mina Djordjević, Katharina Fischer, Agnieszka Kucharska, Julia Legezynska, Joana Katarzyna Pietras, Ola Zielińska, Влада Русіна (Vlada Rusina), Тереза Яковина (Tereza Yakovyna), Ігор Дмитрієв (Igor Dimetrijew) With singers from the Luhansk villages Filmed in 2021 in three villages — all now under Russian occupation. Білолуцьк Людмила Шуляк, Петро Чепелуха, Валентина Деркач, Людмила Горшкова, Оксана Гутнєва, Людмила Іларіонова, Тетяна Кандиба,Юрій Кузнєцов, Юрій Максименко, Анна Невідома, Наталія Шепілова, Олег Волков, Тетяна Зайцева // Осинове Ольга Бушла, Любов Молочкова, Марія Саградова, Зінаїда Сковородка, Катерина Ткаченко // Городище Тетяна Грабчук, Любов Корнієнко, Раїса Шугайло, Світлана Коновалова https://vimeo.com/962580061https://vimeo.com/962584141 Previous performances 2024 Revision St. Elisabethkirche Berlin 2022 St. Elisabethkirche Berlin 2022 unidram Festival Potsdam 2022 Mounsonturm / Frankfurt LAB 2021 World premiere St. Elisabethkirche Berlin Available for touring — please get in touch. Collaborators Funded by Images by Larion Lozovoy
Greenhouse
Greenhouse A nomadic participatory performance · by Tereza Yakovyna and Matthias Schönijahn, with local artists and participants What it is Where it began Greenhouse travels. With each city, each country, each group of people, it becomes something else — but the gesture stays the same: people gather around a terrarium, a small structure within a structure, and develop a metaphor together with local artists. The metaphor shapes what happens in the room: stories shared, songs sung, silences held, decisions made together. At its core sits one recurring question: Can we create spaces for listening, sharing, and collective creation — beyond ideology and origin — by recognizing every emotion as true and as a possible form of connection? The journey starts with the Places of Invincibility that appeared in Kyiv in the winter of 2022 — fragile, improvised tents with heaters, where people gathered during war to share information, drink tea, charge their phones, and find courage in each other’s presence. From this image grew the metaphor of the greenhouse: transparent, delicate, vulnerable — but also a catalyst for accelerated growth, a place where another atmosphere becomes possible. A living space inside the impossible. Like our planet in the vastness of space. The journey so far April 2023 — Flensburg, Theaterwerkstatt Pilkentafel The premiere. Starting point: Tereza Yakovyna’s experience of fleeing the war in Ukraine, and the question of what people are forced to leave behind. Inside the terrarium, small catastrophes were triggered until it slowly transformed into an aquarium — a poetic foreshadowing of Flensburg, expected to lie one meter under water by the end of the century. Together we built a fragile structure of old windows: an „impossible house“ that was both shelter and exposure. June 2023 — Berlin, HAU2 (in cooperation with Hebbel am Ufer) A construction of suspended windows surrounded the space and slowly lowered over the course of the evening. Onto them we projected papier-mâché reconstructions of abandoned houses, made by their former residents. The focus: personal memories, lost objects, and the question of how Berlin, too, will be reshaped by climate change. October 2024 — Leipzig, Revolutionale Hosted on Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz in a temporary theatre structure. Twenty participants gathered around the question of how to live with loss — not only of objects, but of ideas and demands, like those formulated during the 1989 revolution. The terrarium slowly filled with water until the landscape sank. An interface translated bodily resistance into sound, and a collective sound-creature emerged from shared touch. At the end, the participants together decided how the performance should close. June 2025 — Yerevan, HayArt Center (first stop of the Perform Europe tour) With artists Gohar Sargsyan and Paulina Miu Kühling, the metaphor became the snail — an image of vulnerability and protection, of slowness, trace, and listening. For two weeks we explored the snail-like architecture of HayArt Center. Then we opened the space and asked: which sounds stabilize us? Which destabilize us? Which songs accompany us through our lives? September 2025 — Tbilisi, Mutant Radio (Perform Europe) Greenhouse — fermenting dreams. With sound artist Nino Davadze and choreographer Natia Chikvaidze, we worked under growing political tension and street protests, in a city where critical voices were at risk of disappearing. Twenty-one participants from eight countries developed „recipes“ for fermenting dreams — through storytelling, somatic practice, collective singing, dancing, and actual fermentation jars. Over ten days, a horizontal structure emerged without fixed dramaturgy. November 2025 — Ivano-Frankivsk, Asortymentna Kimnata at the Ukrainian Society of the Deaf (Perform Europe)With artist Dariia Kuzmych, whose practice is closely tied to working with veterans, we open a space where war experiences — often unspoken yet shaping every part of life — can be brought into form. The guiding metaphor: Mapping of Experiences. Memories charted on paper, in objects, in the terrarium, in the room. The terrarium starts empty this time. It will be filled together. Created by Supported by Tereza Yakovyna, Matthias Schönijahn — and the local artists and participants of each station: Vira Khorsun, Paulina Miu Kühling, Constantin von Thun, Gohar Sargsyan, Vardan Harutyunyan, Haikush Hovhannisyan, Natia Chikvaidze, Nino Davadze, Dariia Kuzmych — and many more. Fonds Darstellende Künste · Kulturstiftung des Landes Schleswig-Holstein · Netzwerk Freie Theater · Hauptstadtkulturfonds · Revolutionale 2024 · Perform Europe · Goethe-Institut Armenien · Today Art Initiative https://matthias-schoenijahn.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Creating-Safe-Space-in-Times-of-War-and-Climate-Change-Project-‘Greenhouse.mp4https://vimeo.com/869288571 Collaborators Funded by Presvious Performances House of Deaf in Colaboratin with Asortymentna Kimnata – Ivano Frankivsk November 2025 Mutant Radio in Colaboration with Plazm Platform Tbilisi September 2025 HayArt Center in Colaboration with Goethe Institute Yerevan, Today Art Initiative Juni 2025 Revolutionale Leipzig Oktober 2024 Hebbel am Ufer 2 Berlin Juni 2023 Theaterwerkstatt Pilkentafel Flensburg April 2023 (World Premiere ) Images by ESDEO and Ivanka Yakovyna
The Great Grand Other
The Great Gand Other Description In THE GREAT GRAND OTHER, three performers question the passing on of war experiences and traumas across generations. What did our parents and (great) grandparents not tell us? What could they no longer tell us? How reliable is what they told us? And how do their war experiences continue to affect us? Between scenic concert, immersive installation and performance, a poetic-musical search takes place, the starting point of which is a blank space. It appears where language falters, the voice fails and narratives fall silent. THE GREAT GRAND OTHER attempts to translate the immaterial legacies of war into images, texts, sounds and movement. What traces has the war left in our families and in ourselves? What are we silent about and why? And how can we find our own voice? THE GREAT GRAND OTHER invites us to embark on this transformation process together, to trace the silence in our own family narratives and to search for words for the unspeakable. Team IDEA – Michael McCrae ARTISTIC DIRECTION – Michael McCrae, Dina Zaitev & Matthias Schönijahn PERFORMANCE & TEXT – Michael McCrae & Dina Zaitev MUSIC & SOUND ART – Melanka Piroschik & Matthias SchönijahnSPACE – Dina ZaitevVIDEO – Matthias SchönijahnCOSTUME – Nicolas Navarro RuedaTECHNICAL DIRECTION & LIGHTING – Kristin Feldmann DRAMATURGICAL COOPERATION / OUTSIDE EYE – Constantin von Thun PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT – Nicole Meier | art.revolution Special thanks to Prof. Dr. Ruthard Stachowske, Efim Ciornii, Wolfram Streller, Robert Kirstan, Jan Kindler Press „Der gesamte Boden ist mit einer dicken Schicht Kiesel bedeckt. Der Lärm, der beim Darüberlaufen entsteht, lässt einen besonders vorsichtig auftreten. (…) Welche Assoziationen lauern da um die Ecke, wenn es so unschön zu knirschen anfängt? [Es] fällt auf, wie sich Dina Zaitev und Michael McCrae langsam über dieses Meer aus Steinen bewegen, den Blick auf den Boden fixiert (…).Was sie dabei finden, sind, vereinfacht gesagt, unser aller Spuren. (…) Am Rand des Geschehens (…) sitzt Melanka Piroschik, die Geige auf dem Schoß. Leise singt sie; irgendwann lässt sich Jiddisch erkennen. Das Judentum, der Holocaust, der auch ohne Mord und Tod ungezählte Identitäten zerstört hat. Viele Stimmen sprechen davon, recherchierte, aufgezeichnete Erinnerungen, (…) Väter und Söhne, die aus dem Krieg nicht zurückgekehrt sind. Gräber, die in weit entfernt liegenden Ländern ausgehoben worden sind, in Ländern, die es so gar nicht mehr gibt. Sibirien, Russland. Was bedeutet es, durch einen Krieg fast alles zu verlieren? (…) Eine solche Form der Auseinandersetzung, sei sie auch noch so subjektiv und in ihren Möglichkeiten begrenzt, ist der eigentliche Akt und als solcher bereits ein Zeichen für Bereicherung, wenngleich eine schmerzhafte. Und nicht wenige Zuschauer spielen währenddessen gedankenverloren mit einzelnen Kieseln und den Erinnerungen unter ihren Füßen.” – “Jeder Kiesel ein Leben” – Rico Stehfest, Dresnder Kulturmagazin https://vimeo.com/889424040 Collaborators and Co-Producers Previous shows 2025 Ballhaus Ost Berlin 2025 Ringlokschuppen Mülheim an der Ruhr 2024 Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster 2024 LOFFT Theater Leipzig 2024 European Center for the Arts Dresden Hellerau 2023 World premiere European Center for the Arts Dresden Hellerau – Erbstücke Festival Images by Klaus Gigga
Treehumana
Treehumana – Concert Installation Description Treehumana – Concert Installation is a listening journey that explores the acoustic entanglement of humans with resonating ecologies. In a former coal power plant – which refers to the pollution and exploitation of the fossil fuel age – the field recordings reverberate from the remains of the old Kurpie primeval forest. The Berlin based Polish vocal ensemble Otucha-Collective develops its own compositions from the vocal practices of Kurpian forest songs in resonance with the sounds of three tree-like high-tech Paetzold recorders (Susanne Fröhlich, Carolin Daub, Marita Gehrer, composition Wojtek Blecharz) and the reverberations and sound effects of the post-industrial space. Based on methods of „deep listening“, Treehumana explores modes of more-than-human acoustic entanglements through perception and its resulting sound expressions. Visitors are invited to follow the exercises and give space to the spontaneous consonance and expressions of their voices. Background At a time of unprecedented man-made world destruction with the consequences of the sixth planetary mass extinction and progressive global warming, Treehumana – Concert Installation takes up the tradition of forest songs from the Polish Kurpie region. In Kurpie People were settled in the 14th century to enable the Duke of Mazovia to hunt in the more than 10,000-year-old primeval forest. Initial attempts at agriculture failed due to the poor soil, so people were forced to live with and from the forest. The forest songs also work with the forest and integrate its reverberation and sound effects into the songs. Due to industrialization, war and electrification, the primeval forest and the forest songs have almost disappeared today. Team Paetzold Recorder and Flutes Susanne Fröhlich (direction), Carolin Daub, Marita Gehrer // Singers from Otucha-Collective Agnieszka Bułacik, Ewa Brokos, Paulina Miu Kühling, Ola Zielińska // Welcoming Words and Listening Exercise Agnieszka Bułacik // „Dolina, Dolina“ Forest-Song performed by Antonina Deptuła Artistic Direction, Concept, Fieldrecordings Composition, Spatial Design Matthias Schönijahn // Composition, Concept Wojtek Blecharz // Vocal Composition, Vocal Direction Paulina Miu Kühling and Otucha Collective // Dramaturgy Jan-Tage Kühling // Costumes Nicolas Navarro Rueda // Technical Direction, Sound and Light-Design Constantin von Thun // Production Management Péter Sanyo // Public Relations Mina Dordjevic // Musicethnological consultance Olga Stopińska // Translation Ewa Brokos https://vimeo.com/1034184120 Funded by Previous shows Kraftwerk – Oberspree Berlin – Schöneweide – October 2022 (World Premiere) Images by Peter Runkewitz
Luhansk Ukraine Archive
Luhansk Ukraine Archive Description We did not originally plan to create an archive. However, we decided to make our recordings public when we noticed that the excellent polyphonyproject.com lacked singing groups from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Additionally, our materials from the Luhansk region help dispel widespread media narratives that portrayed Eastern Ukraine as merely a „Russian border“. In reality, the Luhansk Region is unquestionably Ukrainian – a place that actively preserves and cherishes its national cultural heritage. We want to share this truth with everyone who hasn’t had the opportunity to visit Eastern Ukraine. Link to Archive Funded by
TREEHU MANA
TREEHU MANA Description TREEHU MANA is both a research-project and storytelling video. With practices and technologies of listening it „confrontes ourselves with the silence of nature“ (Christopher Manes). Listening is seen as an experience that has the potential to open ourselves towards the unexpected. It is seen as method that requires exposure and vulnerability and aims to unlearn a language based idea of being interconnected with the environment. TREEHU MANA is an invitation to rehearse awareness that we are speaking while we are listening. Background Listening understood as a practice is extended and transferred to the whole body as well as to sensors and technical devices. Through different ways of listening and in self-exposure to trees and a forest, fragile, multi-layered ways of speaking are sought. Via the voice the storytelling video refers to Kurpie, a remnant enclave of primal forest in Poland. In Kurpie singing with the forest transformed into a practice today known as forest singing. People were communing with the forest using the reverb and its soundeffects. Today not only the primal forest in Kurpie is endangered and shrunk to small protected areas. Also the unique (acoustic) relation of humans towards the forest including their songs are vanishing. TREEHU MANA is following the idea of the human acoustic entanglement and asks: How is our auditory perception affected by our surroundings? What are the qualities of acoustic inter-connectedness? How are the human-inflicted sounds echoing in the non-human world? In times of mass extinction and noise pollution, how can an understanding of the human as an acoustic being shape our relationship within environments? Team Idea and realisation – Matthias Schönijahn Dramaturgy – Rose Beermann Choircomposition – Paulina Miu Kühling Singers – Paulina Miu Kühling, Julia Legieżyńska, Joanna Pietras, Ola Zielińska Hearing exercise #1 – Ola Zielińska EEG Measurement – Steffen Heimes Soundrecordings – Thomas Sternitzke Consultant Listening Practice – Martyna Poznańska Special Thanks – Dr. Anett Laue https://vimeo.com/492993133 Collaboration Funded by Previous shows 2023 Group exhibition – Response – ability – Somos Gallerie Berlin 2022 BAM! Festival Berlin (Babylon)
Silent Moves
Silent Moves Description Silent Moves assembles sound recordings, interviews, files of the Ministry of State Security, and music into an acoustic archipelago of Vietnamese life from the GDR to the present and links them to concrete locations. In this way, the district becomes a walk-in audio archive. In addition to contemporary witnesses and the „second generation,“ ethnologists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, musicians, and many more have their say. Among them are Anetta Kahane, the first commissioner for foreigners of the East Berlin magistrate, Tamara Hentschel, founder of Reistrommel e.V. and Thuy Nonnemann. Background Nowhere in Germany are the histories and presences of Vietnamese migration so closely connected to concrete places as in Lichtenberg: whether the Dong Xuan Center with its small pagoda, former factories and dormitories of contract workers*, the first German-Vietnamese kindergarten, the hospital where the first psychiatric outpatient clinic for Vietnamese was established and abortions of Vietnamese women were performed, the headquarters of the Association of Vietnamese in Berlin-Brandenburg, and the headquarters of the Ministry of State Security. The arrangement of the individual acoustic „islands“ as an archipelago of voices and sounds points to the fact that they belong together in terms of content, but nevertheless avoids the temptation to try to tell a coherent story. The individual orientation of the visitors in the streets and squares is what connects the islands and gives them meaning. Silent Moves always begins in the here and now of the visitors and forms the prologue for the perception of (his)stories. link to silent moves Team Idea and realisation – Matthias Schönijahn Collaboration – Thy Le Scientific consulting – Dr. Anett Laue Concept, realization engl. translation – Ana Berkenhoff Vietnamese translation and voice – Hung Manh Le Graphic design (map) – Claudia Eckstein Collaboration Funded by Images by Matthias Schönijahn
Centeotl – Return of a Goddess
Centeotle – Return of a Goddes / By K.A.U.&Wdowik Description One goddess, two statues and a double theft: More than 200 years ago, Alexander von Humboldt brought a statue of the deity Chicomecoatl from Mexico to Berlin, where it became part of the ethnological collection. In 2018, K.A.U.&Wdowik traveled back to Mexico with a copy of the statue to start a new one in the footsteps of ancient tales. Return of a Goddess is both a cinematic travelogue and a scenic fantasy about how to deal with colonial heritage. Team Idea, Realization – K.A.U.&Wdowik (Bergmann, Reifler, Schönijahn, Wdowik) Performanca – Lea Kieffer, Rocio Marano Light – Laura Eggert Camera – Daniel Ulacia Production management Mexico – Pia Siliceo Trueba Production management Germany – ehrliche arbeit freies Kulturbüro https://vimeo.com/642972727?share=copy Collaboration Funded by Previous shows 2018 Sophiensaele Berlin Images by Daniel Ulacia
FIASKO – Opera Installation
FIASKO – Opera Installation / By K.A.U.&Wdowik / Blecharz Description FIASKO is a transeuropean opera installation that takes up the tradition of opera and transforms it into a contemporary, open form. Starting from the metaphor of the loss of voice and against the background of current European conflicts, the directorial team K.A.U. &Wdowik, composer Wojtek Blecharz and cinematographer Dino Osmanovic embarked on a cinematic journey to Europe’s easternmost border. Background From Germany across the Bay of Gdańsk to Kaliningrad, they encountered reverberating expressions of local traditions – such as a traditional costume group performing circle dances on the grounds of a former ammunition factory, the humming songs of Polish peasant women plucking down, or hunting horn players and bagpipers with imposing wind instruments. The artists combine their encounters with people, musical styles and stories in impressive images. Composer Wojtek Blecharz combines the musical material of the traditional groups in the film with alienated reminiscences from the classical opera repertoire and his own compositions. Team With local traditional clubs from Germany and Poland Actress – Magdalena Koleśnik Idea, Realization – K.A.U.&Wdowik (Bergmann, Reifler, Schönijahn, Wdowik) Composition – Wojtek Blecharz Musical direction – Johannes Harneit Dramaturgy – Matthias Mohr Stage and costume design –Rahel Kesselring Video editing – René Liebert Cinematography – Dino Osmanovic Production management –Theresa Willeke Cinematography – Dino Osmanovic Camera Assistant – Benjamin Schmid Production Management Travel – Silvia Dudek Collaboration Funded by Previous shows 2019 studiobühne Köln 2019 European Centre for the Arts Dresden Hellerau 2019 Nowy Teatr Wasraw 2019 Sophiensaele Berlin (World premiere) Images by Rita Cuto and Killa Schütze
FIASKO – FILM OPERA
FIASKO – Film Opera / By K.A.U.&Wdowik / Blecharz Description With compositions by Wojtek Blecharz (premiere), Hans-Joachim Hespos (premiere), Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner, Wolfgang-Amadeus Mozart and others. „With what catastrophe would the European utopia end, were it an opera?“ Along new and old borders, from Darmstadt across the Bay of Gdansk to Kaliningrad, the group K.A.U.&Wdowik embarks on a cinematic journey to the easternmost border of Europe. Their encounters with people, music and stories are linked in impressive images to a libretto, on the basis of which a multi-perspective film opera is created together with the composer Wojtek Blecharz and the musical director Johannes Harneit. Background At the beginning of the opera there is a crisis: if the opera lives from the vocal embodiment of the innermost emotional worlds, it is the loss of her voice that makes a young woman embark on a journey into the unknown. Her destination is the end of Europe in order to find either a new beginning or death. In the borderland between local musical traditions, fragments from the European opera repertoire and new compositions, Fiasco opens up unknown musical and visual spaces. As the result of a unique trans-European collaboration, this opera is both a swan song to the European work and its rebirth. Team With the Opera Chorus of the Staatstheater Darmstadt and the State Orchestra of the Staatstheater Darmstadt. With local traditional clubs from Germany and Poland Actress – Magdalena Koleśnik Idea, Realization – K.A.U.&Wdowik (Bergmann, Reifler, Schönijahn, Wdowik) Composition – Wojtek Blecharz Musical direction – Johannes Harneit Dramaturgy – Matthias Mohr Stage and costume design –Rahel Kesselring Video editing – René Liebert Cinematography – Dino Osmanovic Production management –Theresa Willeke Cinematography – Dino Osmanovic Camera Assistant – Benjamin Schmid Production Management Travel – Silvia Dudek Collaboration Funded by Previous shows 2018 Staatstheater Darmstadt (World premiere) Images by Killa Schütze